Photo Series: A Red-light District in China

Text from Global Voices Online and pictures from Fengniao:

…In the time since mainland China implemented reforms, women in impoverished regions have escaped poverty by means of prostitution, and in those places there has appeared a situation of ‘smile at poverty but not at prostitutes’. This reflects women’s low status, a decline in women’s moral standards and a decline in societal moral standards as well. This kind of phenomenon is of the same nature as the issue of women becoming “gold digger” wives; all involve the behavior of women selling sex as a commodity. Only the former (sex workers) are short-term, with multiple retail, while the latter (full-time wives) are long-term, with one-time wholesale. If legal means are used to sanction, to only sanction the former but not the latter is illogical, and nobody would support a stance which would see legal sanctions being put on the former….